Uncategorized
sb admin | November 24, 2010Update 30/11/10: 23andMe has extended their 80% discount until Christmas, without a need for a discount code.
Personal genomics company 23andMe has made some fairly major announcements this week: a brand new chip, a new product strategy (including a monthly subscription fee), and yet another discount push. What do these changes mean for existing and new customers?
The new chip
23andMe's new v3 chip is a substantial improvement over the v2 chip that most current customers were run on (the v2 was introduced back in September 2008). Firstly, the v3 chip includes nearly double the number of…
gregladen | November 23, 2010"It is in these labs -- often late at night, often fueled by a dangerous combination of coffee and obsession -- that our future is being won. For in a global economy, the key to our prosperity will never be to compete by paying our workers less or building cheaper, lower-quality products. That's not our advantage. The key to our success -- as it has always been -- will be to compete by developing new products, by generating new industries, by maintaining our role as the world's engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation. It's absolutely essential to our future."
Barack Obama…
gregladen | November 23, 2010The State Canvassing Board of Minnesota met today to "certify" the election results from earlier this month, and to affirm that the vote was within one half of one percent in the gubernatorial race between Democratic Farm Labor candidate Mark Dayton and Republican Tom Emmer.
Part of that process involves a discussion, which as of this writing is still ongoing, about the procedure for the required recount. There are a number of issues involved, and I will not bore you with all of them. But I will discuss one, because it seems to me that the outcome of today's canvassing board meeting may…
illconsidered | November 22, 2010One of the shocking revelations of the Swifthacking of CRU one year ago (aka Climategate) was the fact that scientists can be downright nasty. Contrary to all previous indications, scientists are not always shy, reserved and polite, prefering the inside of a lab to any possibility of confrontation.
On the heels of the discovery of this new phenomenom comes a fresh bit of research from the icey confines of Antarctic research facilities.
After three long months of studying ice core samples in the Antarctic, a multidisciplinary climate research team presented startling evidence showing that all…
pharyngula | November 22, 2010Here's a fine collection of photos from Skepticon, including several of us in a lovely leather top hat. I think I need to get one for myself.
I'd like to see hats come back into style anyway. It seems like only Texans and their Stetsons that have kept up the practice.
gregladen | November 22, 2010There is no down side to this, and viewing it s a political move is cynical and unacceptable.
From the White House:
Earlier this year, President Obama called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create new rules for Medicare and Medicaid hospitals that would allow patients the right to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay. The Presidential Memorandum instructed HHS to develop rules that would prohibit hospitals from denying visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.…
pharyngula | November 22, 2010It was a rough night—roads in Minneapolis were clear, so I managed to drive halfway home, but then they turned into glassy sheets of frozen slickness, so I stopped for the late night at a cheap motel. Now the journey resumes by daylight, at least. It's still icy, but at least I'll be able to see.
I'm relieved that there will be no more travel this semester.
mikethemadbiologist | November 21, 2010Ok, it just got cold. Stay inside and read some links. Science:
Prokaryotes considered
Negotiating your start-up package in non-medical biological sciences
You Are Not What You Eat
New frog species found in hunt for old ones
Other:
The Tea Party Targets... Sustainable Development?
Glenn Beck and the Uses of Anti-Semitic Propaganda
Why the Deficit Obsession?
Debt Doesn't Matter
Stoller: A Debtcropper Society
pharyngula | November 21, 2010Let's see…where am I? Oh, yeah. Springfield. Skepticon. My talk went OK, it was an all-science talk, and maybe disappointed those who expected me to lasso a god out of the sky, set him on fire, and stomp on his smoldering carcass. Afterwards, the party went on for quite a while. I was supposed to referee a drinking contest between Rebecca Watson and Richard Carrier, but they both faded pathetically early, forcing me to continue on for both of them.
No sleep for me. I ended up shooting the breeze all night long with DJ Grothe and Amanda Marcotte and Bug Girl and a few others.
Now I've got a…
gregladen | November 21, 2010Aaron Huey's effort to photograph poverty in America led him to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the struggle of the native Lakota people -- appalling, and largely ignored -- compelled him to refocus. Five years of work later, his haunting photos intertwine with a shocking history lesson in this bold, courageous talk...
gregladen | November 20, 2010Over the last couple of weeks, I've written a handful of blog posts that are based primarily on the local news in the Twin Cities or Minnesota. Either we have stranger news than other places (which I think is true), we are going through a strange period (which I think is true) or I've got some sort of strange personal psychotic thing going on so that whenever I see a news story like "Combine runs over, kills black bear" or a web site that says "Help us Decide, Should we Have an Abortion or Not" I think it's odd (which I do).
The "Do we have an abortion?" web site, representing the situation…
gregladen | November 20, 2010Labor activist Auret van Heerden talks about the next frontier of workers' rights -- globalized industries where no single national body can keep workers safe and protected. How can we keep our global supply chains honest? Van Heerden makes the business case for fair labor.
gregladen | November 19, 2010In some societies, men hunt together and this is probably a part of male bonding. Before you write off the idea of male bonding as facile pop psychology, please step back a moment from the term, which is so overused in mostly cynical contexts that it has probably lost its meaning. Let me try to put some fresh meaning on those old bones.
Men are somewhat obnoxious and hard to be around unless they are purposefully trying to be nice (and that can be worse). Many of the tasks in which men engage, depending on the society, require what we would probably call "training," whereby a complex…
gregladen | November 19, 2010If you ever get to see "Millhouse" do so! I'd love to watch it along side any similar documentary on George Bush. I don't have the film, but here is a documentary about the documentary.
Part I
Part II
Part III
gregladen | November 19, 2010Ecologist Eric Berlow doesn't feel overwhelmed when faced with complex systems. He knows that more information can lead to a better, simpler solution. Illustrating the tips and tricks for breaking down big issues, he distills an overwhelming infographic on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan to a few elementary points.
gregladen | November 18, 2010We laugh at the idea of you burning in hell and we hope you get hit by a church van tonight!!"
... Richard Dawkins reads some of his hate mail while relaxing at the hearth.